


There Is a Box

by cunningAesthete



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Humanstuck, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-11
Updated: 2012-06-11
Packaged: 2017-11-07 11:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/430874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cunningAesthete/pseuds/cunningAesthete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a box that contains all of who he is and who they were together.</p>
<p>Humanstuck AU, definitely Sadstuck.</p>
<p>Sollux looks back on his life and the best thing he ever had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Is a Box

There is a box.

It’s a simple box, decorated in an elegant and girlish manner.

The outside is red and yellow, beautiful and ultimately symmetrical. It has masculine and feminine decoration, astrological symbols, and a few places seem to be unfinished.

Just a glance at the box and he can feel it pulling at him. He already sees his hand reaching for lid, separating it from the bottom to look down inside. The box is full of guilt and tears and fears masquerading as simple memories.

Long, talented fingers delve into the pictures, the contents, and touch over a smiling face captured in a beautiful moment in time. He remembered that smile. He remembered her scent, the way it filled his head, the way it made his heart beat faster, the way just a simple touch of her nails to his cheek could make him pause.

There are so many things in there.

Feelings.

Memories.

Everything his life was before is in that box.

But also so is everything his life is now.

Guilt.

Anger.

Pain.

Everything is in there and they only escape when he can’t help himself any longer.

Why is this one of those times?

He picks up the box, carrying it through the apartment to settle himself on the couch. There are fewer breakable things here, there are fewer things he can throw in a rage when he truly starts to read, to look, to stare.

He could be caught here in her long-tangled web for hours.

He probably will be.

The contents of the box seem simple and innocent to a casual observer. They might believe it to just be a box of memories from a past relationship or a current friend.

But to him, it hurts more than a box of razors and needles, burns far worse than a vat of acid, and he is just enough of a masochist to not care.

This is the only way he can be close to her any more.

Everything is in meticulous order - a quirk - a defense mechanism for so much of his life being out of his control.

Pictures first.

Trembling fingers lift them from their cardboard coffin, the images glossy and beautiful as they were at their first printing. He flips through them and memories flash behind hetero-chromatic lenses. Dates, long since passed, the feel of the wind in his hair, the too-sweet taste of candy pushed into his mouth, the smell of her and the sea, the soft feeling of grass under bare feet, the sunshine on a smiling face, the softness of blankets, the warm of carriage rides in autumn, everything pulls at his heart, his memories, drowning him until he almost can’t breathe and tears well behind his eyes.

Until he reaches the end of the photos and a smile curves across his lips as he begins to see her smile, the sparkle of a large diamond on her finger, the way her soft lips curved in pleasure, the tears in her eyes, and he heard, for the briefest moment, that single space of time.

The music erupted around him, the feel of her soft arms wrapped around his neck, the soft, tear-filled whispers of love and caring and happiness murmured against his throat. And then he is back in his warm, cozy apartment, feeling colder and more alone than ever.

He set the pictures aside now.

Notes come second.

Pages and pages of the things. Some written on colorful paper in playful handwriting, others written on plain white paper with a utilitarian hand mixed in that he recognized as his own. Even small letters exchanged between times when work interfered or family tugged and called them back home. His fingers glided over the well-worn creases, the faint tear stains from times before. The pictures were easy to replace, each of them on his computer – and many more besides – but he only had so many pieces of paper with her writing on it, where her hands had touched and his now rested.

They were love notes.

Scribbles.

Even lists and phone numbers hastily scrawled in her elegantly messy script across rushed notepads, the bar napkin where he had first gotten her number, and then the notes.

The actual notes.

The ones she had copied for him, trying her best to write what she called ‘legible’ but he knew every letter she had written, the way her ‘y’ curved back on itself, the way the tails of her ‘m’ and ‘n’ were always a little longer than they should be. He knew it all and loved it.

But he spent the time.

Every time.

He re-memorized her writing as though he would have a test on it later and would need to recall it from memory.

He re-memorized the smell of her skin pressed to the page.

He felt the tears well up and spill over his cheeks as he read a letter she had started writing home to her family just after he had graced her finger with that circle of metal and rock. He carefully set the paper aside, each of them crinkling and crackling, a few small circular splatters of tears across the pale papers on top, showing her handwriting through the now translucent paper.

Now, at last, it was the things – the small objects – that reminded him of her.

They lay at the bottom of the box, but they always moved around when he carried it through the apartment, his eyes carefully avoiding the art on the walls, the set of archaeological tools resting on the mantle of his fireplace.

Trembling now, his whole body trembling, he reached into the box and drew out a length of antique gold chain followed by what had once been the prize of her collection: a deep red ruby cut and shaped into a ram’s horn with etchings of some foreign sigils all through it in such intricate detail.

Light played through the delicate, blood red stone as it hung in the sunlight, as he once more remembered it hot from her skin or wet from the shower, the way it would bounce lightly with each step or just the way it would dangle between them in intimate moments. He remembered the times he would curse as he worked to free it from her long tangles of hair or just the way she could be so easily still, staring into its depths as though she heard it speak to her, as though she understood the arcane signs craved by hands so long since dead. He stared at it, hoping to capture some of her magic, some of those beautiful scenes as he waited.

He waited forever.

Maybe he could even hear her.

But he hadn’t.

He hadn’t heard her since those first few devastating weeks.

And then, he was back to being inundated with the other sounds of agony.

His own at the forefront.

No. No. He had other objects, other things to look at, he couldn’t become wrapped up in the ram’s horn as he always had been in the beginning. No. He had a ritual to finish. He had a communion with his personal guilt, his demons, scheduled after this moment of solace. This moment of self-inflicted pain and cruelty.

And so it was placed aside in the long line of things that had come before and would return in an opposite order.

He avoided the small circle of platinum and diamond.

That was last, as much as his fingers brushed against the precious circle and remembered it glinting beautifully in the daylight and her smile and everything about that day, that night playing in his mind.

No. Next was a thin journal.

It was empty.

Each page blank.

But it had been carefully put together.

The paper made by hand, stitched together and smelling as though she had just set it in front of him once again, smiling so sweetly and laughing gently. Each paper was lined, by her careful hand, in inks alternating between ruby red and sapphire blue, the cover yellow leather, carefully treated and cut, embossed with bees and strange symbols that she had never explained to him. She told him it was a special journal, one for the things he heard.

He shook his head.

He had never been able to write in it.

Ever.

He couldn’t mar it when he knew that another one would never be made for him by the delicate fingers.

Settling it aside, his own careful fingers shifted things around, pulling out ticket stubs for movies and carnivals, cursing that a few were missing, but the ones for the Indiana Jones re-releases were still there. And for the new movie.

That had been one of his favorite dates.

The two of them curled together in the chairs, armrest lifted to allow them access and prime cuddling positions. He had spent the two months before constantly checking on the possibility of tickets; then a month on wheedling a midnight premiere and a whole week pestering and fixing things so that they could enter the theater early so that she could have whichever seats she wanted.

And he had loved her enthusiasm.

He wish he could have recorded it.

Other memories of that night drifted back to him and happiness was a fleeting and cruel mistress as it reminded him of what he would never have again. He couldn’t help it as tears once more slid down his cheeks, painting the pale flesh with moisture and showing his emotions now.

He couldn’t hold them in. Not in the face of that memory.

He had to take a moment.

It turned into several moments.

And then it turned into almost an hour of body wracking sobs.

At least it had lessened, before it could have been days of such sobbing before he could move again, before he could resume his task.

But now, it became just a little easier to set the tickets and their memories aside, trying to ignore the painful thumping of his heart.

A worn, battered CD was lifted now, the shining rainbows reflected from the disc coloring the soft cream colored walls of his living room, playing across an elegantly engraved skull and a framed print from some long-forgotten Chinese dynasty and a set of artifacts from some Mesolithic something or other shadowboxed upon his wall.

It was the first thing he had ever been able to make for her.

A CD.

A mixtape.

He hadn’t listened to it since that last car ride.

It was playlist with over a thousand plays on his computer.

The last one was over three years ago, however. He could tell the last second it had happened. That was a memory engraved into his mind like acid in glass.

But he ignored it.

Ignored the sight of a white keyboard smeared with blood as shocked fingers shook. Ignored the fearful, fitful silence he suddenly heard. Ignored the coldness that seemed to invade his entire being. Ignored everything but the sudden sound of plastic threatening to give in to too much pressure.

He set it down again and shook his head.

Not right now. He didn’t want to have to think about trying to replace that. But now it was a time that he always seemed to try and push to the end.

But warm fingers easily wrapped around the small circlet of metal with the solitary diamond and he raised it from the box, fingers scraping the bottom with a hollow sound as he stared at it.

Now his mind flashed.

Nervousness gripped him as he debated between four different rings in the jewelers before surety settled upon this diamond and this setting. That same nervousness gripping him as he had to keep moving the plain box around the apartment and even took to carrying it on his person to keep her from finding it.

The careful plans made to make the perfect day to ask the most gut-wrenching, nerve-strangling question of his entire existence. The way his ego melted and his confidence fell through a hole in the floor when he’d seen her.

Suddenly he was happy, laughing, watching as she showed off the ring to her friends. As the blind girl asked to lick it and was met with laughter. As her bubbly friend exclaimed with fish puns a plenty, though she could have afforded that ring many times over if she had talked to her family and wanted it. That bitch exclaiming in jealousy and a sudden fit of feminism that had eventually manifested itself in the rose-gold circlet that rested upon his finger, set with a ruby and a sapphire. The mothering influence and sudden designing of an impromptu wedding from their motherly, fashion-forward friend.

And then silence again with nothing but happiness throughout.

And then screaming.

Lots of screaming. Fights and cruelty slung from him, something tasting of honey and liquor and then just liquor burning his throat and all he could think was ‘please let this end differently. please don’t let me fuck this up the same way again. please don’t do that. we know better. oh god please don’t do it.’

But he couldn’t help it.

He’d stopped the medicine. He’d started drinking. He’d been seeing things. He’d been hearing things. He grew irrationally jealous. He’d thought she had found someone else. He’d thought so many dark things. Both of her and himself. He’d actually started to wish death on himself. He’d stopped eating. He’d started yelling. He’d said things he hadn’t mean and had chased her through the apartment, yelling hoarsely. He hadn’t been able to stop himself. He would never hit her. And now was no exception. He would never, but he did push her.

He could see it.

He could see her expression break.

He could see her stumble.

He could see himself leap forward as though he could catch her as she began to fall from the window.

He hadn’t gotten these in time.

He remembered watching her fall and thinking that she looked beautiful and peaceful and so serene.

He remembered the distant sound of her music playing.

He remembered hearing a sick, dull thunk as he looked down again.

But then he remembered nothing. Nothing. From the tapes, he knew he’d called the police in terrified hysterics, lisping like a madman and unable to do anything but cry and scream the news. He didn’t remember the sensation of running down the stairs. He didn’t remember kneeling beside her broken body and reaching for her hand.

The thing he did remember was her soft voice rasping from her broken throat and blood bubbling over her lips. He remembered leaning down and her forgiving him. He remembered holding her hand, the ring covered in her blood, the feel of the liquid oozing into his clothes as he gathered her into his lap, and he remembered kissing her bleeding mouth, the soft wheeze of her breath not escaping him as he promised he would always love her, that he was sorry and that he never wanted to let her go. He remembered the sick, squelching chuckle that had been accompanied by more blood as she said her last words to him.

“ _I’m glad that I got to see you one more time. I love yo—“_

It hit him with all the visceral reaction of a knife to the gut and he was sobbing grossly now.

He remembered being in shock. He remembered the police and EMTs pulling him out of the way. He remembered screaming more. He remembered crying. He remembered seeing the EMTs shake their heads to one another. He remembered the white cloth they had pulled over her face and the way that a sick red stain had spread from where her lips had been, such a sick mockery of the normally red lipstick that the beautiful girl had always worn.

 

 

 

And then nothing for a long time. He remembered nothing but a haze. Work suffering. Spending long stretches of time doing nothing but listening to that playlist keep going until he rose to turn it off. He hadn’t ever washed her blood from his hands.

Something occurred to him as he came back to his body with a gasping sob, looking down and seeing the blood all over himself once more.

He could never wash it away. Ever.

And that was when the guilt set in.

It gnawed. It clawed. It tore at his insides. And then rage joined the party, his chemical imbalance in check for now, but it still resulted in a disgusting mess that he was never aware of until well after it had happened. He was like a violent storm, wrecking everything in the room, destroying it. However, most of it was either unbreakable or replaceable, leaving puddles of glass and stuffing strewn across the room as he tried to take out his rage, his guilt, his built up anger on something other than himself.

That was how he found himself. Resting on the couch, panting, her things all set neatly together, the ring in line where it belonged, and he shook his head, unable to comprehend until he took a steadying breath.

It was time to put everything away.

It was time to put the feelings back where they belonged.

It was time to clean everything up and hope that this had satisfied him for a long while.

A resigned sigh left him as he placed everything back in reverse of how he had retrieved it.

Her funeral played now.

The fight with her parents over wanting her prized necklace, her engagement ring, but they had relented. They had not been there with her. They had not held her hand. They had not seen that beautiful smile, that exquisite light snuff out after a shortened speech and he had won through sheer stubborn will.

But it wasn’t time for that memory.

This fragmented room needed his attentions now.

But his fragmented heart and soul would go ignored.

For now. 


End file.
